Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Fatal Trust with Guest Diana Miller

From time to time I showcase other authors and books on my blog. Today I’m pleased to have guest Diana Miller, author of Fatal Trust. She’s here on her blog tour to share an excerpt from her book AND share her giveaway: a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card. (Official rules below.) Take it away, Diana!

Stepping her perfect Jimmy Choos into
place beside Ben Gallagher’s wounded Nikes, straitlaced Philadelphia lawyer
Catherine Barrington is surprisingly unable to resist the disarming small-town
mechanic’s charm. He’s one of the heirs to the vast fortune left by his
eccentric grandfather Max, a bestselling horror writer, and she’s there to
carry out Max’s last wishes. Routine enough…except that inheriting comes with a
catch: none of Max’s heirs will get a penny until they’ve lived together for
two weeks in the shadow-filled rooms of his mansion in the wooded hills near
Lake Superior.

From beyond the grave, a letter from
Max insists that his death was no accident, sending Catherine undercover—and
way out of her comfort zone—to catch the killer. Posing as Lexie, Ben's
cocktail waitress girlfriend, Catherine soon finds herself trapped with the
feuding clan at the sinister Nevermore manor. To save her own life, she’ll have
to confront the murderer, as well as her growing attraction to Ben—a top
suspect.

Excerpt:

Ben
draped an arm around Catherine’s shoulders, pulling her against his side. He
smelled like pine soap, which surprised her. She’d expected some men’s cologne
with a virile name and an overdose of spice and musk. “Why don’t you get me
another drink, Lexie? She’s a cocktail waitress,” he told Cecilia.

That’s
right—she was supposed to be Lexie the cocktail waitress. Catherine gave him a
tight smile. “I’m off duty.”

She was
also supposed to be crazy about him, so instead of telling him where to stick
it, she raised her chin. “I came out here to give you emotional support. Not to
wait on you.”

“Good for
you, Lexie,” Cecilia said. “Ben always dates twits who do whatever he wants. He
needs someone who’ll stand up to him.”

Ben
sighed as if he’d been ordered to haul stones across the Sahara for a new
pyramid rather than his own glass across the room for a refill. “With the two
of you ganging up on me, I guess I’ll get my own drink.”

“Bring me
a glass of cabernet while you’re at it,” Cecilia called after him.

“They got
me.”

The words
came from the man who’d just stumbled into the parlor. His light brown hair was
all wild wisps and spikes, one sleeve of his suitcoat was torn, and his shirt
had been pulled from his trousers.

And he
was covered with blood.

“They
came out of the trees,” he wheezed out. “I couldn’t stop them. I tried, but I
couldn’t.”

“Help
me.” His voice was just above a whisper. “Please.”

Then he
collapsed in a bloody mess on the parlor floor.

~*~

About the Author

When she was eight, Diana Miller decided she wanted
to be Nancy Drew. But no matter how many garbage cans she dug through,
conversations she “accidentally” overheard, and attics she searched, she never
found a single cryptic letter, hidden staircase, or anything else even remotely
mysterious. She worked as a lawyer, a soda jerk, a stay-at-home mom, a hospital
admitting clerk, and a conference host before deciding that the best way to
inject suspense into her otherwise satisfying life was by writing about it.

Diana is a five-time nominee for the Romance
Writers of America Golden Heart Award, including for Fatal Trust, and won a
Golden Heart for her debut novel Dangerous Affairs. She lives in the Twin
Cities with her family.